Chap. 44.] THE CUCUBALUS. 241 



CHAP. 43. — THE CHEYS0LACHANU3I ; TWO YAIilETIES OF IT : 

 TUKEE KEMEDIES. COAGULUM TEKK.E : TWO REMEDIES. 



The chrysolaclianum^** grows in pine plantations, and is 

 similar to the lettuce in appearance. It heals wounds of the 

 sinews, if applied without delay. There is another kind'^^ of 

 chrysolachauum mentioned, with a golden flower, and a leat 

 like that of the cabbage : it is boiled and eaten as a laxative 

 vegetable. This plant, worn as an amulet by a patient sulfer- 

 ing from jaundice, provided it be always kept in sight, is a cure 

 for that disease, it is said. I am not certain whether this is 

 all that might be said about the chrysolachauum, but, at 

 all events, it is all that I have found respecting it ; for it is 

 a very general fault on the part of our more recent herbalists, 

 to confine their account of plants to the mere name, with a 

 very meagre description of the peculiar features of the plant, 

 — just as though, forsooth, they were universally known. Thus, 

 they tell us, for instance, that a plant known as " coagulum^'^ 

 terrae," acts astringently upon the bowels, and that it dispels 

 strangury, taken in water or in wine. 



CHAP. 44. — THE CUCUBALUS, STRUMUS, OR STKYCHNON I SIX 



REMEDIES. 



The leaves of the cucubalus,^^ they tell us, bruised with 

 vinegar, are curative of the stings of serpents and of scorpions. 

 Some persons call this plant by the name of '' strumus,""^"^ 

 while others give it the Greek name of *' strychnon :" its ber- 

 ries are black. The juice of these berries, administered in 

 doses of one cyathus, in two cyathi of honied wine, is curative 

 of lumbago ; an infusion of them with rose oil is used for head- 

 aclie, and they are employed as an application for scrofulous 

 sores. 



2=* " Golden vegetable." Supposed to be identical witli the Atriplex of 

 B, XX. c. 38, our Orage. 



•^^ Cultivated orage, probably. 



40 "Earth rennet." This plant has not been identified. Lobelius has 

 made a guess at the Serapias abortiva of Linuseus, the Helleborine. It is 

 pretty clear that it was unknown to Pliny himself. 



^^ The same, probably, as the Trychuon of B. sxi. cc. 52, 105, Solauum 

 nigrum or Black nightshade. In the former editions the reading is "cuculus."' 



1- The "strumous" or "scrofula" plant. 

 VOL. v. K 



